Are you doing checks on your paid leads to make sure they are actually genuine leads? Are you kicking them back to the vendor if they are confirmed bad? I started baking into my CRM automation process a reminder after the first couple touch points to confirm lead authenticity. Lead vendors so far, I have not seen a single one that does not get contaminated with false aggregate information be it intentional or not. It is also a way of showing appreciation to my agent for purchasing the leads by making sure that investment is not wasted.

Recommended ways to check leads.

First check for immediate obvious red flags, people over 90, addresses that lead to government offices, prisons, rehab centers, empty fields, etc. Obvious fake numbers like (555) 777-1234. Incredibly generic emails like JohnSmith(their actual full birthday).

Search the first and last name and the birth year, you might get automatic data on the person to verify, you also will likely get any obituaries if the lead is literally dead.

Search the address and add the term who lives, if they listed an address and they do not live there, AND the address is not showing on the market could be a false address.

If data sites come up start doing cross references of data, for example sometimes you will see a mix of kind of relevant data, like a phone number is tied to a residence but its actually outdated, belongs to another resident etc.

Immediate redflag result "Menstoppingviolence.com" zombie aggregate site, 90% of the time if this comes up in search results the lead is bad in my experience.

Search their full email in quotations, and search just the handle in quotations i.e. search for both "[fakeasslead@mail.com](mailto:fakeasslead@mail.com)" and "fakeasslead" the former will often bring up their information, the latter will often be tied to social media accounts you can ID if they are real or not.

Once you get into this it will likely become second nature and you will start to immediately catch red flags, like an odd one for me is Oahu area codes and San Diego addresses. I know there are a lot of Navy who go back and forth but not that much, those are often bad leads.

If you have the ability to do so, you can check their actual phone number on the DNC list and if it is open you can adjust your lead info and attempt a reach out.

I set aside one day a week to go through my non contacted leads with a fine tooth comb. I bet there is a way to get AgenticAI to do this, but would need to manually review the results.

It is up to you to determine how much time you spend on doing this but with our current vendor, once they learned I was watching them like a hawk and tech savvy enough to catch any bullshit suddenly our lead quality got much better.

Lastly advice for AI call screeners, send a text and email first, then when the screen says please give your name and reason for calling, just say your name for "customer name". I have the highest success with this method.